Category: Weekend Reading

Reading time: 4 mins A long week, or so it felt, as the lurgy caught me. Not so much reading, a lot of sleeping! 12 Struggles Of Having An Outgoing Personality But An Anxious Mind Outgoing people with anxious minds – or minds that overthink – tend to feel anxiety the most intensely, often because we don’t talk about it. And by “often” I mean never. Our anxiety is a contrast to our big, bold personalities. Strangers would never guess it. I manage to keep most of my anxiety squashed down, not always though. Never presume you know someone from the A Neuroscientist on the Calming Powers of the To-Do List 1. Those who make lists. 2. Those who don’t. And, as one scientist …

Reading time: 5 mins Morning constant reader, another swathe of random posts. Enjoy!! How We Learn Fairness A pair of brown capuchin monkeys is sitting in a cage. From time to time, their caretakers give them tokens, which they can then exchange for food. It’s a truth universally acknowledged that capuchin monkeys prefer grapes to cucumbers. I love this kind of article, helps me understand myself better How could I read more books? Agatha Christie read 200 books every year, while Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg gets through a book a fortnight. President Theodore Roosevelt read a book a day, and increased this to two or three when he had a quiet night. But how can mere mortals get through more? Yup, I’m doing Goodreads …

Reading time: 3 mins A bumper issue this week because I’ve had a little more time to read (because I’m making more time). I think I’ll be more selective moving forward though, but here is what I found interesting this week. Thicker Than Water In the 1986 John Hughes-penned film Pretty in Pink, Molly Ringwald plays Andie Walsh, a quick-witted, externally tough, yet entirely sympathetic fashion-savvy teenager with a preference for New Wave. In the way of teenage movie clichés, Andie is from the “wrong side of the tracks. http://ift.tt/1TDPzMS 19 Books To Read Before The Movie Comes Out In 2016 What it’s about: This is the true account of six soldiers and what they braved during 13 hours when the U.S. State Department …

Reading time: 2 mins Happy New Year to you all! A shorter list this week, being posted via my phone on (barely) a 3G signal from the banks of Loch Lomond – I can see the Loch from where I’m sitting – enjoy!! The Believer – Destroy All Monsters This article is divided into two parts: a manual and a scenario. The first part, the manual, is an exposition of the game Dungeons & Dragons: what it is, how… http://ift.tt/16Of6xi I have never played D&D, but always found the idea of it fascinating. Going Pro I’ve been wanting to do this for five years now and it’s finally happened. I sold my MacBook Pro to go all-in on iPad as my main personal computer. …

Reading time: 4 mins I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, now it’s time to sit back and relax, grab that turkey sandwich, and maybe a few of the following will help get you through until it’s time for a nap. Consciousness Began When the Gods Stopped Speaking Julian Jaynes was living out of a couple of suitcases in a Princeton dorm in the early 1970s. He must have been an odd sight there among the undergraduates, some of whom knew him as a lecturer who taught psychology, holding forth in a deep baritone voice. Read: http://ift.tt/1GG2bPP Dispossessed in the Land of Dreams Sometime in July 2012, Suzan Russaw and her husband, James, received a letter from their landlord asking them to vacate …

Reading time: 2 mins A few of the following are hard to read, please note there may be triggering content. The Secret History of One Hundred Years of Solitude The house, in a quiet part of Mexico City, had a study within, and in the study he found a solitude he had never known before and would never know again. Cigarettes (he smoked 60 a day) were on the worktable. LPs were on the record player: Debussy, Bartók, A Hard Day’s Night. Read: http://ift.tt/1QeX8v2 There Once Was a Girl My parents have a small framed photograph of E and me in their upstairs hall. We must be 6 or 7. We are smiling in someone’s backyard, our heads damp from running through a sprinkler, …

Reading time: 4 mins Commuting = reading time. Here are some of the best things I read this week. ‘Star Wars’ Strikes Back: Behind the Scenes of the Biggest Movie of the Year It is a bleak time for the Republic. It is a period of great struggle for the entire planet, and not only is the dark side winning, it’s no longer clear any other side even exists. Seriously, you guys – Earth is messed up. Just ask a polar bear, or an almond farmer, or a GOP debate moderator. Read: http://ift.tt/1N8CneN Arts & Culture Read Is it OK if you don’t know where you stand on Syria? A poll by YouGov found 1 in 4 women don’t know if they support Syrian …

Reading time: 2 mins Late because I’m an idiot and set the wrong publish date… The news this week has been, well, I’m not sure I have the words to describe how I feel about a lot of it, grim, unsettling, horrifying, tragic… I’m not sure I even have the words to express myself appropriately here. Still, the world spins on and the following (mostly) distracted me this week. 100 Women 2015: Return of a topless rebel In 2013, Tunisian feminist Amina Sboui left the country after publishing a topless photograph that caused a scandal across the Arab world. After two years in France, Amina is back in Tunis – with a new plan to stir things up. Read: http://ift.tt/1llXS4c After decades of defeat, …

Reading time: 2 mins Quieter week as I’ve spent most of my time reading documents at work so a bit ‘over reader’. The Generation That Doesn’t Remember Life Before Smartphones Down a locker-lined hallway at Lawrence Central High School in Indianapolis, Zac Felli, a junior, walks to his first class of the day. He wears tortoiseshell glasses and is built like he could hit a ball hard. He has enviable skin for a teenager, smooth as a suede jacket. Read: http://ift.tt/1SJ6T29 Frankie Boyle on the fallout from Paris: ‘This is the worst time for society to go on psychopathic autopilot’ There were a lot of tributes after the horror in Paris. It has to be said that Trafalgar Square is an odd choice of …

Reading time: 5 mins Obviously a lot of the focus of the news has been, rightly, the terrorist attacks in Paris, Beirut and Mali. This list feels frivolous but perhaps it’s good to ‘look away’ for a few moments. Secret Chambers, Grain Silos and the Long, Long History of Pyramid Conspiracy Theories The Giza Pyramid complex, photographed by Eduard Spelterini from a hot air balloon in 1904. (Photo: Public Domain/WikiCommons) In 867 AD, a European monk named Bernard caught a ride on a slave ship out of the southern Italian city of Taranto. Read: http://ift.tt/1Qiq70H Noel Gallagher Is Esquire’s December Cover Star I was born in Longsight in Manchester, which is a really rough-arse part of town. They knocked our street down to build this …